Employee Health Screening

The worksite environment is a effective, but frequently overlooked, component in managing employee health.  Here we will identify some of the best-practices in beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows employees to take charge of their own health.  For example, a Employee Health and Wellness Program that includes a smoke-free worksite policy increases the likelihood that employees will try to quit tobacco use and will quit using tobacco successfully. Similarly, a Employee Health and Wellness Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps raise employees’ consumption of healthy foods which supports your investment in disease management programs for employees with diabetes, heart disease or hypertension. The following will guide you through the ten key steps in beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program and worksite environment that encourages employee health.

In an era of ever-increasing healthcare costs and fervent competition, businesses have a vested interest in the health of their employees.  Research has found that, on average, employees with healthy behaviors (such as not using tobacco or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower healthcare expenses, are absent from work less frequently, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than employees with unhealthy behaviors.

Employee Health and Wellness Program: Securing Leadership Support

Employee Health and Wellness Program support from the uppermost level of leadership is essential to your success in beginning a culture of wellness within your worksite. Look for Employee Health and Wellness Program support from a leader who is respected by and can influence other leaders. (It’s not important that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Employee Health and Wellness Program.) You will be relying on this culture-of-health champion to advocate for changes that you recommend and to ensure the organization allocates adequate Employee Health and Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the worksite policies, physical environment, and social norms.

Secure Employee Health and Wellness Program Staff and Budget

Starting and maintaining a Employee Health and Wellness Program within your company needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your company is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Employee Health and Wellness Program.  There are a number of ways to find an individual with the required skills to guide and support your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program.

Establishing facilities and Employee Health and Wellness Program policies, such as those allowing employees to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be expensive, but it does require adequate and sustained funding.  If possible, include the creation of a worksite environment that supports the Employee Health and Wellness Program as a permanent part of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your company.

Employee Involvement in the Employee Health and Wellness Program

Pulling together a cross section of staff members to advise your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program ensures that improvements in worksite facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and barriers of all groups of staff members.   In addition, these employees can serve as the front-line Employee Health and Wellness Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.

Create a Employee Health and Wellness Program “Brand” and Vision

A Employee Health and Wellness Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in moving a Employee Health and Wellness Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your worksite environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Employee Health and Wellness Program vision statement summarizes for all (employees and leaders alike) the reasons for beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between employee health and your company’s ability to achieve its overall mission.

Branding your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program conveys to employees that the company’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Choose a Employee Health and Wellness Program name and logo that resonate with employees. Then use that brand on all Employee Health and Wellness Program communications with employees about the policies, facilities and programs your company offers to promote healthy behaviors.

Evaluate Your Current Employee Health and Wellness Program Situation

Exactly how your company creates a Employee Health and Wellness Program that encourages healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your company and employee population.

Evaluate how the current worksite facilities, policies, and unwritten norms support — or discourage — healthy behaviors.

Gather information on the health and health-related behaviors of your employee population.  The most common method is by using a validated health risk assessment. If you don’t have data specific to your employees, you can estimate the prevalence of different health risks and behaviors within your employee population using state or national data.  Note: Information on staff members’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.

Determine Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals and Priorities

Use what you’ve discovered about employee health and about your current worksite environment to determine your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program priorities. From those Employee Health and Wellness Program priorities, define clear and measurable Employee Health and Wellness Program goals for improving employee health and your company’s culture. Well written goals will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.

Choose Employee Health and Wellness Program Procedures

Focus your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on strategies that are most likely to produce results:  an increase in healthy eating, an increase in physical activity, and a reduction in tobacco use. There’s no need to guess at what might work. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reviewed thousands of studies and has identified the Employee Health and Wellness Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Employee Health and Wellness Program strategies are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.

The formula for Employee Health and Wellness Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.

Implement Employee Health and Wellness Program Procedures

Once you’ve chosen your Employee Health and Wellness Program Procedures, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline.  The “right” amount of time for implementing each Employee Health and Wellness Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your company.  Work plans keep your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to create a Employee Health and Wellness Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.

Communicate and Educate About the Employee Health and Wellness Program

Ensure employees are aware of the Employee Health and Wellness Program opportunities you’ve provided.   Planning your Employee Health and Wellness Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with employees without overwhelming them at any one time.

Monitor and Report Your Employee Health and Wellness Program Results

At the same time that you plan your Employee Health and Wellness Program Procedures, think about how you’ll measure success.  It’s much easier to gather information – or to create systems for collecting information — before you implement a Employee Health and Wellness Program strategy rather than as an afterthought.   Keep in mind that you’re likely to see improvements in employee morale and/or behaviors before you see decreases in absenteeism or healthcare claims.

Report both your Employee Health and Wellness Program successes in building a healthy worksite environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides employees time for walking during the workday), and Employee Health and Wellness Program successes in getting staff members to take charge of their health (an increase in the number of employees who contacted the stop-smoking program, or an increase in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).